Hirings at new English school board almost finished

Finance positions with eastern office account for majority of vacancies

Darrin Pike

Almost all of the positions at regional offices for the new Newfoundland and Labrador English School District (NLESD) are filled, according to its first-ever CEO and director of education.

“The positions we have left to fill are mainly in finance, payroll, budgeting, accounting clerks, procurement, those kinds of areas,” said Darrin Pike.

Through a consolidation process that saw four English school districts rolled into one, regional offices such as those in Corner Brook and Gander mostly experienced staffing reductions in finance, according to Pike.

The central and Labrador offices have all positions filled, and there remains a single position to fill at the regional office for western Newfoundland. The eastern regional office has approximately 20 vacancies. Pike noted some positions shifted to the eastern regional office through consolidation.

NLESD officially took over the role of serving 258 schools across the province on Sept. 1. It employs approximately 5,400 teachers and 2,100 support staff.

In two weeks, Pike expects the number of vacancies at NLESD will be in the low single-digits. Pike said successful internal applicants

can create new vacancies when they move into a job.

“We have some of that happening, and therefore you don’t move ahead on the count of how many positions you still have vacant. A lot of that has already occurred, so now we’re moving into when we fill a position, we’ve got it filled.”

Operating at less than full capacity may not be ideal for any organization, but Pike said the school district can get by on a short-term basis.

“There’s some critical things that need to be done, like payroll,” he said. “We’re reallocating some of our staff from things that we can delay while we’re staffing-up the full complement of our employees ... Everybody is working tremendously hard.”

As for the transition process itself, Pike said everything is going well so far.

“We do expect to have a few bumps along the way, but I think we’ll quickly respond and overcome them.”